What is it, my child? I can well call you child, for you have so smooth a skin.
CLISTHENES: 'Tis said that Euripides has sent an old man here to-day, one of his relations ...
CHORUS: With what object? What is his purpose?
CLISTHENES: so that he may hear your speeches and inform him of your deliberations and intentions.
CHORUS: But how would a man fail to be recognized amongst women?
Euripides singed and depilated him and disguised him as a woman.
MNESILOCHUS: This is pure invention! What man is fool enough to let himself be depilated? As for myself, I don't believe a word of it.
CLISTHENES: Are you mad? I should not have come here to tell you, if I did not know it on indisputable authority.
CHORUS: Great gods! what is it you tell us! Come, women, let us not lose a moment; let us search and rummage everywhere! Where can this man have hidden himself escape our notice? Help us to look, Clisthenes; we shall thus owe you double thanks, dear friend. CLISTHENES (_to a fourth woman_). Well then! let us see. To begin with you; who are you? MNESILOCHUS (_aside_). Wherever am I to stow myself?
Each and every one must pass the scrutiny. MNESILOCHUS (_aside_). Oh! great gods!
FOURTH WOMAN: You ask me who I am? I am the wife of Cleonymus.
CLISTHENES: Do you know this woman?
CHORUS: Yes, yes, pass on to the rest.
CLISTHENES: And she who carries the child? MNESILOCHUS (_aside_). I'm a dead man. (_He runs off._) CLISTHENES (_to Mnesilochus_). Hi! you there! where are you off to? Stop there. What are you running away for?
I want to relieve myself.
CLISTHENES: The shameless thing! Come, hurry yourself; I will wait here for you.
CHORUS: Wait for her and examine her closely; 'tis the only one we do not know.
CLISTHENES: You are a long time about your business.
MNESILOCHUS: Aye, my god, yes; 'tis because I am unwell, for I ate cress yesterday.
CLISTHENES: What are you chattering about cress? Come here and be quick.
Frederick William Hall (1865–1948) was a classical scholar and Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. Together with William Martin Geldart, he produced the Oxford Classical Text of several authors. Hall was a careful editor known for his thorough collation of manuscripts and his conservative approach to textual criticism.
The Hall–Geldart editions in the Oxford Classical Texts series provide reliable critical texts with selective apparatus criticus. The OCT series, established in 1894 as the Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, aims to present the best available Greek and Latin texts in a format suitable for both scholarly use and teaching. Each volume provides a clean text with the most significant manuscript variants recorded at the foot of each page.
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